Three Peakes and a harbour

A great night's sleep, and fantastic not to be seeing the world through a veil of exhaustion. Detailed conversation about Leicester Tigers rugby club, by two guests who had adopted Lorraine yesterday. I found myself fresh out of cheerful sports banter department before I'd even had a cup of tea.

Lorraine and I took a transcendentally beautiful walk under a perfect blue sky to Icart and around and down to Saints Harbour. I rarely find myself there, so took a several photographs.

A slow walk back up the hill, listening to the water running down the valley and the birdsong, before returning to the hotel for a fast sandwich before catching the bus into town.

This afternoon The Poetry Café, crammed full of poets -- Caroline Carver (who I rather like as a person) plus bus prize winners, and some locals I recognised. Some good interesting poetry going on, and I read a couple of poems too. Just over halfway through Lorraine and I realised we were about to be late for another talk I had intended to attend. So we legged up to Candie Gardens where we attended a fascinating lecture with all three of Mervyn Peake’s children Fabian, Sebastian and Clare there.

I asked three questions about Arundel, Peake and Tolkien, and Peake’s poetry. Sebastian, who I liked a great deal and had corresponded with, said that Arundel Castle certainly contributed to Gormenghast but not as much in his opinion as China had. Sebastian also thought that Peake and Tolkien were opposites, that Tolkien looked down from a lofty height, while Peake was more down and dirty. Fabian Peake said that his father's poetry was perhaps the most important of all his creative expressions. All fascinating stuff.

After watching a brass band outside, Lorraine and I mooched off with Edward Chaney. We sat outside on the Thai restaurant balcony having a cold lager. Nice to chat to Edward and thank him personally for his writing of the introduction to A Guernsey Double. He is a very charming and likeable man and, as a professor, obviously has a large brain too. Then Lorraine and I hopped on a bus, for an early sixes and sevens supper at La Barbarie, and a chilled evening.

We took a late walk just after sundown. Bats flitting about in the still light sky, and just before coming in again, we stood listening to the wind in the trees for several minutes. This is one of my favourite things to do, and seems in the quiet which still descends on Guernsey, a perfect moment, which struck me as being more eloquent and moving than anything I’d said or heard all week.

Below Jane Mosse reading at the poetry cafe, some idea of the colours on offer around Saints Harbour. Plus a bizarre knot of tiny spiders.







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